In
the world of video games, one of the most popular and iconic genres
is the first person shooter (FPS). One of the most successful
franchises in the FPS genre is Call
of Duty
from Activision.

Activision
is set to launch the next installment in the franchise on November 9,
2010 entitled Call
of Duty: Black Ops.
Activision is betting big on Black
Ops
and plans for the launch of the game to be one of the biggest
in the 31-year history of the publishing
company.

Activision stated during a conference call this
week that it planned to invest more money in the marketing and launch
of Black
Ops than
it has ever invested in a game title before, including last year's
blockbuster hit from the franchise Call
of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Activision
COO Thomas Tippl said, "This year's Black
Ops will
release on more platforms than ever before, and continues to pace
ahead of last year's record setting
Modern Warfare 2 in
terms of per-sales and consumer awareness metrics."

Activision
CEO Bobby Kotick says that he expects Black
Ops
to expand the franchise's audience and the game will not only target
hard-core gamers and existing fans of the franchise. He stated, "This
is, across the board, the biggest investment that we've ever made in
the launch of a title. The market opportunity is bigger than it's
ever been, the install base of hardware is bigger than it's ever
been, and the product has incredibly broad appeal, but it also has a
whole host of functions that will be unique to the core
consumer."

The expectation for Black
Ops
to outperform
Modern Warfare 2 is
impressive. Modern
Warfare 2
was one of the biggest PC game launches of 2009 and raked
in $310 million in sales over the first 24 hours. Analysts
expected the game to sell
5 million copies the first day.

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In console defence... I was dominantly PC gamer until I have purchased PS3, last Christmas... and since then I've been playing PS3 games almost exclusively, even if my PC is more than grunty for comfortable gaming.

Non-existence of online cheaters is my main reason - I've been annoyed by cheaters in PC games more than enough for my money. For FPS (mostly playing Bad Company 2 and MAG nowadays) joypad is not as good as mouse/keyboard, but one can get used to it - and everyone else has the same handicap anyway; ridiculous scenarios where someone keeps jumping around and head-shooting opponents while in the air simply cannot happen, which creates a bit more realistic gameplay. Actually everyone plays with exactly same hardware (save for the screen size) which does bring additional equality to the game.

Visuals are not as good as the best PC config can push out, but they are more than good enough not to be distraction (and again, no one has them any better or worst than the others regarding resoluton, details, frame-rate... things that can give advantage).

At the end of the day... after spending 8 hours behind the desk in the office, with keyboard and mouse under my hands, it is really nice for a change to dig into favourite recliner chair in front of decent sized TV, instead of replacing one desk/monitor/mouse/keyboard with another more or less same combo.

i'd rather take pc gaming over console gaming--solely due to the glut of pre-pubscent, voice-cracking, profanity-lacing adolscents who seem to be the bulk of console FPS gamers.

p.s.

the money you save on a graphics card today will be money you have to spend on the next generation of console. if no one adopts the technology for pc; console gamers are eventually going to have to foot the bill for innovation. i can promise you that.

I for one will not. Activision, as usual, you ruined what was once a good franchise. God only knows what you will end up doing to blizzard, Ive already seen some slightly disturbing new trends with Starcraft 2.

Me niether. They are simply rushing out of the door thinking we'll mindlessly buy it. Am i correct in thinking they screwed over the developers of modern warfare and this is a different team? (Jut look at the difference in quality between world at war and modern warfare to start worrying)

Long time COD fans will know that Black Ops is developed by Treyarch, and Treyarch's offerings has always been weaker than Infinity Ward's. Granted that quite a few of the old timers from Infinity Ward has left, but still, I think Activision is betting on the wrong horse.

I don't recall if it was mentioned here or in an article elsewhere but I wholeheartedly agree that Activision is oversaturating the market with their FPS games, much like RB/GH oversaturated their markets.

Not to mention it will be competed with others FPS's hitting the market around the same time. Reach comes to mind, which will certainly dampen sales on the 360. Not sure about what's hitting the PS3 and PC platforms but I'm certain there will be something coming up around the holidays.

How many of these can one play anyway? It's getting to the point that it's almost like re-releasing E.T. every year on film, but updating the graphics a bit and making the storyline a bit more ridiculous.

IW can suck it, those aholes jacked up the PC price, because they could, those aholes took away the dedicated servers from PC players, and forced any PC play to play on their crappy servers. IW can burn for all I care, PC gamers is what kept them alive, and they turned around and screwed us over in favor of console n00bs. IW is the only company to charge PC gamers an extra $10 for no reason, only reason console games always cost more than PC games is because of licensing.

I bought COD: MW2 and was completely disappointed. The multiplayer experience is absolutely as sh**tty as can be. No dedicated servers so you end up playing with half a second lag (you have to edit the bars to even get a clue how bad it actually is). There are so many cheaters that it's actually a wonder if you can play two or three rounds without a cheater ruining the game (not to mention the hacked servers with no gravity or leveling up automatically)... That is if you can get your party to the server without always someone dropping from the party. They have had plenty of time to fix these issues but I guess they are not interested. Guess what, I'm not interested in any of your products any more. Battlefield: BC2 FTW...

Ps. Your mileage may vary. The stupid server system puts me against polish and russian players and those **** have the biggest % of cheaters I've ever seen.

"We can't expect users to use common sense. That would eliminate the need for all sorts of legislation, committees, oversight and lawyers." -- Christopher Jennings